


the roads that lead to you

by Marvellous



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Alternate Universe, Falling In Love, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:00:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22607401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marvellous/pseuds/Marvellous
Summary: dennis needed an escape. a road trip by himself to the grand canyon fit the bill. he had no intention of picking up a stranger in fuck-knows-where, texas, but life's funny like that sometimes.(the alternate universe mac/dennis road trip fic no one asked for)
Relationships: Mac McDonald/Dennis Reynolds
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	1. it's a lonely road

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is not finished in it's entirety, but I thought I'd post the first few chapters and see if anyone was interested enough for me to continue :)
> 
> I am a sucker for road trips and self discovery exploring unknown roads and everything an adventure has to offer, and so this Mac/Den AU was born.

“Dennis,” Dee’s hand landed on his shoulder and Dennis was shocked out of whatever trance he’d been in, “Are you gonna be okay?”

Her eyes were red and puffy as she buttoned up her black jacket. Strange how the death of someone so horrible still managed to affect them both so deeply. Shaken to their core, really. Like their mom’s last revenge, of some sort, ripping away the false sense of security they never truly had growing up. 

Various family members that Dennis could care less about had mostly all left by now, the shifty parking lot of the funeral home littered with only a few vehicles at this point.

“I’m fine,” he insisted, refusing to go back inside, “Going to the bar, Charlie already left.”

“Want me to come?” Dee asked, but her voice was tired and her eyes flicked to her girlfriend who was just coming out of the building behind them.

“Uh, no. It’s fine. Go home,” Dennis said, “Just some stuff we have to do.”

Dee nodded, “Okay. See you at Paddy’s tomorrow then?” 

“Mhmm,” Dennis hummed and his eyes watched her hand slip into that of her girlfriend, “Night, Dee. Amy.”

The brunette offered a small sincere smile to Dennis. There wasn’t a day since Dee and her had gotten together that they had gotten along, but it seemed everyone had some kind of sympathy to give him today. He really hated it.

Dennis watched them get in their car and eventually drive off into the night and slowly he made his way to the end of the parking lot, where his range rover sat as lifeless as ever. The drive over to the bar, Dennis hardly blinked. He hadn’t even cried since they found out she died a few days ago. He waited for something to snap, something in him to just go ‘Hey bitch! Your mom just died and you should cry about it! Be upset! Grieve and shit!’ but nothing happened. 

Something radical needed to happen, though. 

By the time he pulled up to the curb of the bar, he had hardly pulled the key from the ignition before he was reaching over to the glove compartment. Rustling through various old papers, receipts, ticket stubs, flyers that had accumulated over the years. At the very bottom of the stack, he found exactly what he was looking for. A dog-eared postcard of the Grand Canyon. The crayon scribbled text on the back was faded but Dennis smiled as he glanced over it. He tucked it into the sun visor before he hopped out of the car, mind one hundred and ten percent made up. 

“Charlie! I’m leaving, bro,” were the first words from Dennis’ lips as he threw the bar door open.

Charlie was screwing some lightbulbs into the lights above the bar, pursing his lips at Dennis, “Okay? You could’ve just texted me. I figured you’d just want to go home or something.”

“What, no. No, dude, like, I’m leaving Philadelphia!” Dennis shed himself of his suit jacket and slipped behind the bar to grab the light blue hoodie he usually kept there.

“Shit. Like, forever?” Charlie hopped down from the step ladder and situated himself on one of the stools opposite Dennis.

Dennis had just finished pulling on the sweater as he shook his head, “No, not forever. For awhile. Maybe. I don’t know, but I need to go.”

“Well, do you know where you're going?” Charlie asked his friend.

Dennis leaned against the bar, “What? Not gonna try and talk me out of it? ‘Dennis you’re just going through a rough time, just wait it out’?”

Charlie shrugged and took a swig of the open beer he had in front of him, “No. If you think you should do it, then go ahead. It’s good to be impulsive sometimes, Dennis.”

Dennis tilted his head and thought that over. Maybe Charlie had a point.

“So,” Charlie continued as he clapped his hands together, “Where exactly are you going?”

“The Grand Canyon,” Dennis announced, proud of his decision. 

“That’s like...on the other side, right?”

“The other side of what?” 

“The…country…?”

“Not like, all the way...but pretty far, I guess? Probably take me a few days...at least,” Dennis shrugged, “I just need to get away.”

“Yah, I know you do, dude,” Charlie almost laughed.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dennis recoiled from Charlie’s pointed comment.

“Man, you’ve been struggling,” Charlie’s voice was gentle, “I don’t want this whole thing to be what pushes you over the edge. I know your mom wasn’t great, but it’s okay to feel sad about it, and you should let yourself do that. Go find some shit out about yourself too. We’re forty fucking years old. I have my cats, Dee has Amy and whatever else she does? And yah, you have us, Dennis, you always have us, but I feel like you’re missing something, and you’re my best friend so I want you to find that. If a spontaneous road trip to see a hole in the ground is going to help you, then do it.”

Dennis was picking at a small dent in the hardwood of the bar top as he let all of Charlie’s words sink in. The man could be surprisingly insightful when the time called for it. He still wasn’t crying, but that didn’t stop the lump in his throat when he looked up at his friend, “Thanks, man.”

Charlie waved his hand and produced his phone from his pocket and pulled up the maps app, “I’ll help you.”

\-----

Charlie was true to his word, and to the best of his ability, he tried to help Dennis figure out which way he should go. After all, Dennis hadn’t been out of Philadelphia in years, and the times he had before usually involved a plane or other people driving. Pretty much the whole country in between the east and west coast remained a mystery to him. 

After a lot of humming and hawing, weighing the three different routes google maps had to offer, Dennis decided on the first most straightforward one. Still meant thirty four hours of driving...but he was up to it. Through Ohio, down toward Oklahoma, crossing through the panhandle of Texas and finally a stretch through New Mexico before he’d hit the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Then he could make a loop and go through Colorado and Nebraska on his way home, if he felt like it.

Charlie tried to convince him to book hotels, it was late summer after all and places would definitely be busy, but Dennis insisted he’d be fine sleeping in his trusty range rover. His aging back didn’t agree, but his back wasn’t the one calling the shots, that was up to his brain. Thankfully.

It was nearing midnight by the time Dennis finished talking to Charlie, and in hindsight, maybe he should have just spent the night back at his apartment, packed some things and left in the morning. Dennis knew though, if he did that, it would give him too much time to think, and he would never end up leaving. Another dream lost to the wind of his mediocre life.

That wasn’t going to happen. Not this time. 

So he texted Dee, Charlie assured him they’d be able to function without him, and he left.

Seven hours and twenty minutes of driving in the dark later, he found himself on the outskirts of Columbus, Ohio and suddenly he was wondering about the logistics of this whole thing. 

He wasn’t really this kind of person. He liked to play it safe, he calculated risks. Leaving in the middle of the night with no clothes or necessities was the opposite of on brand for him. His mom died, sure, but was that a reason to uproot whatever he had going for a split second decision to see a giant hole in the ground? Apparently so. 

-

First thing Dennis decided he needed was essentials. Clothes, toiletries, makeup. Things he was sure he couldn’t make it without. That particular need had him pulling into the parking lot of a TJ Maxx that was just opening, some sleepy looking employees glared at him as he walked through the automatic doors. He must look like an annoying customer, in his old hoodie and dress pants, the collar of his dress shirt poking out the top. Like the kind of guy who would yell at a customer service employee because they didn’t have one very specific thing he was looking for, through no fault of their own. And usually, he lived up to expectations like that. Today though, he went about his business and spared them.

Some off brand all natural toothpaste and a pack of toothbrushes was the first thing he grabbed from the shelves, because it had been on his mind since the moment he left Philadelphia. There was no way he could make this happen without a toothbrush...and deodorant. Once he held those things in his hands, he wandered over to the clothes. 

A weird sense of pressure settled on his shoulders while he looked through the racks of mismatched shirts in his size, and instead of putting any thought to what he was doing, he grabbed a generic grey-blend shirt and then a black pair of sweatpants. No layers of thought process behind it. He reminded himself that had no one to please, no one to keep up appearances for, it didn’t matter what he picked. But he definitely needed out of the scratchy clothes he had on since the night before. 

Underwear. Dennis also grabbed several packs of underwear, because who knew how long this would take, and he didn’t plan on doing any laundry anytime soon. 

Wandering over to the front counters, he snatched a couple bags of trail mix and chips, whatever he thought might be appealing later when his appetite reappeared, before unceremoniously dropping the things he’d collected in front of the cashier, feeling strangely light. 

The young guy stared at him for a minute before he started ringing the purchase through. Slowly. Turning everything over in his hands looking for the tags, moving at a snail's pace as he removed the security tags from the clothes. “Pretty early for shopping,” the guy commented dully. 

“Yah,” Dennis agreed, pulling his card from his wallet, “I’ve got somewhere to be so if you could-” he stopped himself. 

Dennis took a deep breath. He didn’t have anywhere to be, his time was his own right now, “Actually, it’s fine. Nevermind.”

The kid gave a half hearted shrug and started to bag everything.

Dennis paid and even offered a thank you before he left, and the mild summer morning outside made the tension in his muscles relax. One step down, one thing completed all on his own, he could do the rest.

It wasn’t until he was wrestling on his new clothes in the bathroom of a gas station outside of Columbus that he realized he forgot to buy any makeup, and for the first time in his life, he didn’t worry about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little fast, and I'll admit that's because I'm impatient and wanted to jump right in. Things even out a little after the second chapter (I think, anyways...lol)


	2. if there are strangers

_dee: so why the grand canyon?_

_dennis: just never seen it before_

That wasn’t the whole truth. Dennis glanced at the postcard tucked away in the sun visor and smiled to himself. Not everyone needed to know his reasoning. 

Truthfully, maybe it was a little silly. It was a postcard from some kid named Ronnie that he’d never even met, a pen pal assigned to him from school when he was eleven years old. It wasn’t even a full school year before they had lost contact, but Dennis always thought that the other kid was possibly his best friend. They got each other, an understanding through misspelled letters and crude crayon drawings.

Going out to Arizona wasn’t some desperate attempt to find the guy, there were never last names on the letters for privacy reasons, anyways, so it was a lost cause even if he had wanted to. It was more that he was following an idea. The image on the postcard was grainy and blurry, a cheap fifty cent thing from a gas station no doubt, but still it captured some sort of energy that Dennis had never been akin with, but a part of him so badly wanted to be. Something bigger than himself. Maybe there were answers there, or maybe it was a void to scream his woes into, but there was something waiting for him there. He could feel it. And Dennis didn’t get feelings like that often, if ever.

Dennis had stopped about six hours after leaving Columbus, already past Louisville, when he decided the gas station coffee he was running on was not cutting it. His body succumbed to feeling tired and he pulled off onto some dirt road, crawling into his backseat to sleep and regain some sort of energy. He’d gone without sleep for longer before, but he’d also never driven for nearly twelve whole hours straight. Seemed that sitting in one place had a weird way of taking its toll on a person, and not coffee, not upbeat 80s songs, could alleviate the exhaustion. 

At some point lying in the back of his vehicle, Dennis concluded that driving at night was a far better option than dealing with other vehicles. An empty pathway of asphalt with no distractions was far more appealing than the troubles of daylight traffic.

Dennis’ phone was dwindling in power, and he briefly wondered what he’d do if he lost it. He had his charger, but still, he needed a backup. At some point after leaving the Kentucky state lines, he found a small town with a bookstore that was still open before he started his lonely overnight haul.

An old lady was tending to the store on her own, and was more than happy to help him find all the road maps he needed. Seemed she didn’t get too many customers. She even found a book on just the Grand Canyon tucked somewhere in the messy shelves of books. 

“I remember going to the Grand Canyon when I was young,” she remarked while walking out of the store with Dennis, locking up behind her. Clearly she didn’t see much business and was latching onto him with small talk, he was itching to leave, but for some reason he smiled, and he stayed while she spoke, “Nothing really prepares you for it. It’s quite fantastic. Even better when you’re with someone else. Young man like you, don’t you have someone to share it with?”

Dennis frowned at that. It felt like an accusation. The gentle tone of the ladies voice warped to feel an awful lot like his mom’s bitterness, always giving him heck for being a disappointment because of course she always expected Dee to be, but him being gay too? At least don’t shove it in her face. Don’t bring any dude your banging home. It was all too much for her to grasp, or maybe it wasn’t but she refused to accept it regardless. Her golden boy was nothing like she expected him to be. Dennis was never really sure if the stress of him coming out added to her health declining, but the time frame sure lined up. 

“No,” he said shortly, realizing the woman was waiting for an answer, “No. I definitely do not.”

He left. He didn’t say goodbye, no thank you to give. The little old lady simply pried where he didn’t want to go. 

The feelings he had leaving that town left him feeling miserable, more so than when he left Philadelphia. The short time of light airiness had crashed down around him and reminded him why he was such a pathetic human to begin with. Whatever he was feeling, he never dealt with that. Pushing it down, repressing, that was always his go to. Put on a good face and no one will ever know you’re suffering.

Without a reason to keep it all buried, though? He was flailing. Drowning. 

His foot had a steady hold on the gas pedal that night, stopping once for gas in between the ten hour stretch, but otherwise, he was focused on the road and that was it. He turned the radio off and passed any other vehicles that were stupid enough to be out on the road at god knows what time in the morning. 

Dennis drove through the entirety of Oklahoma without so much as a backwards glance. It wasn’t anything special, anyways. 

It wasn’t until Texas that he really allowed himself to breathe again, to let go of the emotions building up inside him. A wave that threatened to crash, but instead subsided back into the depths of the ocean, waiting for the next time the storm formed on the horizon. There would be a next time, after all, there always was. 

Besides the consistent loud storm of thoughts and feelings in Dennis’ head, the drive was uneventful. A few deer darted in front of him somewhere outside of Oklahoma City, and he saw (and smelled) a dead skunk more than once. Traffic was mostly non existent, and the roads were straight. Boring. The landscape was dark, so he didn’t have to worry about missing anything either.

The sky was tinged with the promise of the sun, the car’s headlights were still on their high beams. Everything was, all together, uneventful. 

Sometimes, though, that can only last so long.

Sometimes, life changes in an instant. A moment lightning fast but with lasting damage, so that everything in your life has no choice but to shift. Like an earthquake, a small tremor can either cause a few pebbles to dislodge, or create giant holes in the ground. 

Dennis didn’t lead a very earth-shattering life, and could name just a few such times in his own life. Once, when he was a teenager, and his step-dad left his mom. This lead to Dee and him discovering the beginning of their mom’s lies and their real dad. Dennis often thought, if that had never happened, he’d have ended up an even worse person than he was now at 40. Bruce Mathison entering the picture didn’t miraculously cure sixteen years of damage, but he did help them deal with it better. The therapy, their time spent with him, it all helped.

Another moment was when he told his mom he was gay. Only somehow, things got marginally worse after that. Instead of living comfortably in his closet, he was out, exposed and miserable.

Then his mom died, and things were still shifting on that one, still waiting for the plates to settle and for him figure out what it all meant.

He never expected two of these moments to come within days of each other, and yet, now, somehow, that next moment started when he saw a figure on the side of the road. 

Outside of fuck-knows-where, Texas.

At five in the morning.

Dennis saw him in the farthest reach of his headlights first, and his instinct was to rub his hand over his eyes because, oh god, the hallucinations were starting. 

The closer he got though, the image only got clearer and he realized the guy had his hand out, but his foot didn’t let up on the gas pedal, driving right past the hopeful look on the random dude’s face.

Dennis’ lungs took a sharp breath of air. 

“Murderers. Rapists. Those are the only kind of people who hitchhike at five-fucking-AM,” Dennis reasoned as he began to slow the range rover.

“How did Dennis Reynolds die? He picked up a psycho killer on the side of the road outside of fuck-knows Texas. He was a stupid bitch!” Dennis was practically hysterical.

Still, he turned around. 

He circled back and the guy had a smile on his face when he came up to Dennis’ window, illuminated even in the dark.

Dennis didn’t dare roll it down all the way, just enough to let his voice through, “Where are you going?”

The guy blinked, and Dennis watched him expectantly. His eyes were wide and red like he’d been crying, hands clutching the strap of a small duffle bag slung across his shoulder. His hair was tousled, a gold cross swinging from a chain on his neck and he was only dressed in shorts and a t-shirt. It was summer time, but the desert was chilly at night. Clearly he wasn’t the sharpest tack in the cork board, or however that saying goes.

“Uh...I don’t know. Where are you going? He asked Dennis.

Dennis hesitated.

“Arizona.”

“Oh! Cool! I’m headed that direction too. You could drop me somewhere that way. If that’s okay? If that’s why you’re stopping?”

“How do I know you’re not planning to kill me or something?”

“Do I look like a killer?” the guy threw his hands up, and looking into his pleading brown eyes, Dennis could admit, he didn’t think he did look like one.

“Exactly what a serial killer would say,” Dennis quipped before unlocking the doors, “Get in.”

Grinning, the guy darted over to the passenger side. 

“Oh my god, thank you so much,” he said excitedly as he hauled himself into the passenger seat.

Dennis considered speeding off before he could really settle in, but he didn’t. No, somehow, this guy was his responsibility now. Dennis didn’t really believe in fate, but it felt oddly like something clicking as soon as that door shut. His eyes were trained on the stranger who tossed his bag into the backseat.

“Mac,” the guy introduced himself with a smile, holding out his hand towards Dennis.

Dennis shook it. Strong. Warm. ‘Mac’....yah, ‘Mac’ made sense.

“Dennis.”

A flash of something passed over Mac’s expression, but just as quick as Dennis made a note of it, it was gone. 

“Thanks for picking me up, Dennis.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unfortunately a couple weeks ago there was a slip up and my next two chapters got deleted...I was so mad at myself I couldn’t even log back into ao3 until now. of course I intend to redo them, but god, the inspiration is not there yet. so, sadly, this story is on a indefinite hiatus for the time being 😔


End file.
